"To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame,to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life."

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

OK so it's definitely time for a I'm-home-in-Oregon update!

I had a completely uneventful plane ride -- which is not the norm -- so uneventful, in fact, that all I remember is the really nasty food they served us. I sat by this older, talkative man on the short ride from Seattle to Portland -- he must have been in his 80's, and very big on traveling... Noteworthy: our stewardess had been on the Millionaire show, and we were allowed free beer or wine. Cool, except I opted out of that, considering the upcoming tooth surgery.

Being home was cool -- I had a couple of days of leisure time with Mum & Tim. Took Bosun on a couple of walks, which isn't as easy as it sounds. He walks at an astoundingly slow pace, and I like to walk briskly, so we don't get along.

Anyway, the big event was Thurs. morning -- I tried to stay awake as long as possible after the sedative, but... it did its job. Yuck. The upper wisdom teeth had at least partially come in, but the bottoms required some digging apparently. They stitched me up, and I was eating mush for a week. Lots of ice cream & applesauce. I'm so tired of soup, especially soup that's been shredded up in a blender. Yuck. Anyway, nearly two weeks later and I'm pretty much painfree -- just some shifting in the lower teeth I think, and I still have to irrigate the places where teeth used to be. Eww.

Anyway, to distract myself I recently started scrapbooking with Grammy. She had hopes that all four of her daughters would make scrapbooks, but that hasn't panned out. So now I'm learning to use the special oval stencils & picture rounders -- fun times. I haven't actually pasted anything down yet... I still need to print more pictures, too.

Last Weds we drove to Corvallis to get Merrie. Packed her room into the jeep, experienced subpar leftovers for dinner at the co op, and then filled up on yummy chocolate hazelnut gelato. YUM.

I've been rather lax about writing W2K articles... averaging about two a week. Tim has me putting some stuff on ebay for him. And I will be doing some odd jobs for neighbors & friends. Not terribly worried about money though, as I'm sure I'll stay underbudget at Stanford. The only thing I can see myself realistically overspending on is food... ahh Ben & Jerry's! And I'm planning to do the whole organic/ free range chicken/ health nut thing. Better late than never!

A top concern right now is decorating my studio for next year. I went shopping via JcPenney's catalog, and ended up with a super girly floral & lace comforter. And my bathroom is going to be all pink/ peach/ red. I figured I may as well do what I want now, since I can't imagine Andrew, or any guy for that matter (straight guy, I should say) wanting to live around lace, flowers, and pink. Hmmm. I figured I'd do the cheapskate thing, so I went to the senior center rummage sale over the weekend and got some cool miss matched silverware. A lot of it is just tarnished because it's real silver... and I kinda like the shabby chic sort of look. Something about vintage patterns...

Anyway, on Saturday we also went to a yard sale. The woman running it revealed, in chatting to us, that she was from Holyoke, MA. And that she then moved to the Bay area, and is now living in Hood River. Strange coincidences. And her daughter went to another all women's college. Do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do DO (Twilight Zone). Best part: I got a little hand held vacuum for $2.

Hmmm... what else. I've been cooking more lately... made mango fried rice, pad thai, meat loaf, spaghetti, brownies, and now tonight, by popular demand, more pad thai. And then probably some chocolate chip cookies. (Mmm, dough).

Sunday was a cool but sunny day, so we went hiking. We went up Surveyor's Ridge and down Oak Grove trail... very pretty. Lots of views of meadows, forest, and, of course, the mountain. Kinda weird trying to irrigate my gum holes after eating, while on the trail. I packed warm salt water in a thermos, and brought my syringe. And of course some biker came by while I was trying to do what the oral surgeon ordered. Errr... how long does it take for my mouth to fill in the gaps with gum tissue? Egads. Anyway, my thighs are still sore -- all that downhill hiking... I try to put more of the burden on my muscles instead of the poor knees, and then... things hurt.

Last night Mer & I met up with her friends at taco night. We're kinda over the whole taco thing, so we just had root beer. Topic of conversation: Jumping off docks, Be Bop Cowboy (or something), and drinking. Hmmm.

In exciting news in my life: George Romero is coming out with a new zombie movie -- opens June 24th. I hope it's good. It's supposed to be, like all his other zombie movies, more than just horror... He says it'll be incorporating class conflict (the upper class human survivors that live in skyscrapers, vs. the working class survivors who do all the dirty work and actually deal with the zombies), and have a pretty pertinent and timely reference to the situation in Iraq. Kinda eerily similar (I guess they don't call them horror movies for nothing).